HONOLULU — A group of 12 people stranded on Palmyra Atoll for almost a week arrived safely in Honolulu Friday evening, according to a news release.

The group, which included four Louisiana couples who were staff members and longtime supporters of The Nature Conservancy, were scheduled to leave Palmyra April 19, but were detained when the only aircraft that can fly directly there and land — a Grumman G-1 turboprop— needed to have an engine replaced and couldn't leave Honolulu.

Palmyra, which is located 1,000 miles south of Hawai'i, is owned by The Nature Conservancy and managed as a national wildlife refuge. The island has a coral runway that cannot be used by jet aircraft.

To retrieve the couples, Pacific Air Charters in Honolulu had to refit a twin-engine Cessna with a removable 75-gallon fuel tank that could get the plane to Christmas Island, 300 miles from Palmyra.

The fuel tank then had to be removed so that the Cessna could ferry the 12 passengers from Palmyra to Christmas Island in two trips. The second group of passengers arrived on Christmas Island yesterday evening before being flown back to Honolulu today on a chartered plane.

Palmyra is the site of an international research station established by the Conservancy and has cabins, electricity, water and food supplies, so the group was never in any danger. The eight Louisiana travelers included Kevin and Winifred Reily of Baton Rouge, Keith and Leila Ouchley of St. Francisville, John and Ann Koerner of New Orleans, and Thomas and Dathel Coleman.

All were in good spirits when they arrived.

The Nature Conservancy organized the trip as part of an effort to build support for its global marine conservation efforts. Palmyra is a low-lying atoll and like coastal Louisiana is at risk from the effects of climate change and rising sea levels. Because of its location within the intertropical convergence zone (a high rainfall belt at the equator where trade winds from the Northern and Southern Hemisphere meet), the atoll is considered one of best places in world to study climate change and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation cycle.

Scientists from nine different scientific institutions, including Stanford, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the American Museum of Natural History, and the California Academy of Sciences, are using the atoll as a natural laboratory.

Palmyra has one of most spectacular coral reef ecosystems in the world. Its coral reefs support three times the number of coral species found in Hawaii and the Caribbean, and five times number of species found in the Florida Keys. The atoll also provides habitat for more than a million nesting seabirds, and sanctuary for the world's largest land invertebrate, the endangered coconut crab.